


i've got my love to keep me warm

by buckgaybarnes



Series: regency AU [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: (but it's basically just foreplay), Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - No Kaiju, Alternate Universe - Regency, Bottom Hermann, M/M, Semi-Public Sex, Snowed In, sex in front of a fireplace, tis the season
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-21 23:53:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16586720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckgaybarnes/pseuds/buckgaybarnes
Summary: Originally, Hermann hadn’t even intended on inviting Newton to the party.(or: more self-indulgent stately gentleman hermann and highwayman scoundrel newt AU, but also they're scientists and in love)





	i've got my love to keep me warm

**Author's Note:**

> you thought i'd forgotten this au. you're wrong
> 
> basically i'm reading emma in one of my lit courses and i reached the bit where they almost get snowed in at a party and i was like newmann regency au hehuhheheuh so i pounded this out. also. i don't write enough bottom hermann and i wanted to fix that, because hermann deserves a good rawing
> 
> you'd probably want to read the first part in the series first? makes more sense that way haha

Originally, Hermann hadn’t even intended on inviting Newton to the party. Not from lack of wanting to see Newton, of course—never from lack of that—but because he was not sure if Newton would even want to come. Newton detests high society little more than anything else in the world, other than Hermann’s father, both of which were notable members of the guest list for the night. Hermann tried to explain this to Newton, but Newton would not hear.

(“You would hate it,” Hermann said during one of their rendezvous, curled up in Hermann’s bed together as Hermann slowly rocked into Newton. “I’m only going because I have no choice. _Oh_ —”

“Quiet,” Newton whispered, though his breath, too, had been hitching higher and higher. “They’ll hear.” Hermann kissed him, then, hungry and fierce, and Newton clenched his thighs around Hermann’s waist and bit Hermann’s shoulder to keep from making noise.

Later, once Newton cleaned himself and redressed, he paused on Hermann’s windowsill instead of immediately leaping out to his horse below and beckoned him over. Hermann was never one to turn down additional kisses, and he accepted the farewell ones from Newton happily. “I’ll be at your party,” Newton declared, fingers twisted in the strings of Hermann’s nightshirt. He grinned. “But don’t tell your father. It’s more fun that way.”)

Now, the clock striking twenty minutes after five and every seat but the one he set aside for Newton filled (Herman kept his word and did not tell his father Newton would be in attendance, but insisted on having an extra seat open anyway at the dinner table), Hermann is certain Newton will not come. Perhaps he’s been detained in business elsewhere. Perhaps he’s off _robbing_ again. Perhaps he simply realized he would loathe the dinner party after all—Hermann would not blame him, were that the case.

There’s heavy knocking at the front door. Hermann’s father shares a confused glance with the butler before motioning him to see to it. The doors creak open and Newton’s customary loudness follows a few seconds later, causing everyone at the dinner table to immediately fall silent. “So sorry I’m late!” Newton's saying, and Hermann holds his napkin to his mouth to hide his grin from his father, who's looking murderously at Hermann. He does not approve of Newton. “Don’t know how I lost track of time like that. Is there still food?”

Newton stomps into view a few moments later, cheeks and nose red from the cold, cravat askew, snow melting on his coat shoulders. “Hermann!” he exclaims, pulling off his riding gloves. (They’d been a gift from Hermann on Newton’s last birthday. Hermann could not stand the thought of him freezing his fingers off in the winter months.) “How are you? It’s snowing like hell out there.” His eyeglasses have fogged up badly as well, and he wipes them off on his cravat. (A nice silk, with odd little lizards embroidered in it—also a gift from Hermann. Hermann could not help but spoil him.)

“Dr. Geiszler,” Hermann’s father cuts in icily, before Hermann can rise to greet his friend. “I was not aware you’d be attending.” He looks at Hermann as he says this.

Hermann finally lowers his napkin, smiling innocently. “I must have forgotten to inform you,” Hermann says, and then he draws the empty seat next to himself out. “Here, Ne—Dr. Geiszler, there is a spot for you.” He raises his voice for the benefit of the rest of the room. “This is Dr. Newton Geiszler, my—” Hermann flushes, “—er, research partner.” Newton bows, albeit mockingly.

Newton does a poor job of hiding his grin as he politely declines the aid of a Gottlieb housemaid and removes his coat, scarf, and gloves himself, though he does allow them to be carried off and hung to dry elsewhere, and then falls heavily into the chair next to Hermann. Hermann’s father watches Newton with narrowed eyes the entire time, but conversation resumes and he is soon drawn into one with the general to his right.

“How’s the party?” Newton whispers into Hermann’s ear. His hand, covered by the tablecloth, creeps over to rest on Hermann’s knee. His fingers are near frozen. Hermann can feel them through the cotton fabric of his breeches.  “Did you miss me?”

“Darling, you’re positively _frigid_ ,” Hermann murmurs back. He lowers his own hand to rest atop Newton’s, still hidden by the cloth, hoping to bring some warmth back into it.

Newton shrugs. “I wasn’t lying. It’s snowing like hell. Nearly got lost twice.” A kitchen maid pours him a glass of wine, and Newton snatches it up and drains it in a matter of seconds. “You always have the _best_ stuff here,” he sighs happily, and then resumes detailing his journey. “I actually fell off into a snow drift a mile from here.”

“Newton—”

“But I’m alive!” Newton says, and grins again.

“You really must allow me to buy you a carriage,” Hermann sighs. It’s an old argument between them, quite familiar, but that does not mean Hermann intends to give it up anytime soon.

“Consider,” Newton leans in under the pretense of reaching across Hermann for the bottle of wine to refill his glass himself. “How _rude_ would it be if you turned me out into a snowstorm like this, with no carriage, only a jumpy horse who’s thrown me off her at least three times?”

Comprehension dawns on Hermann. “Terribly rude,” he says. “Shameful, even.”

“Exactly,” Newton says. He squeezes Hermann’s knee.

“I’d have to offer you a room,” Hermann says, as Newton’s fingers travel higher, into the dip of Hermann’s inner thigh. “But, ah—” Newton rubs his index finger along the seam of Hermann’s breeches. Hermann coughs into his napkin.

“No spare rooms,” Newton nearly purrs. “I know. I wouldn’t mind shar—”

“Dr. Geiszler,” a man at the table says, one of Father’s friends. “What is it that you study?”

Newton does not move his hand from Hermann, but he takes a sip from his wine glass and gives Hermann a slow, lazy smile before answering. “Biology,” he says. “And some,” he circles his thumb over Hermann’s growing hardness, “anatomy.”

“And you and Dr. Gottlieb…?” the man continues, surely wondering how such fields coincided with Hermann’s own. The body versus the heavens.

Newton rubs his ankle against Hermann’s, and Hermann feels perspiration bead on his forehead. “Research partners,” Hermann repeats, louder than he intended. “We are research partners.” Newton is cupping him through his breeches now, smiling politely at Father’s friend all the while. “I find Newton’s company _quite_ intellectually stimulating.” Newton snickers.

“Geiszler,” the man’s wife says. “I don’t know of any Geiszlers. Is your family...?”

“Dessert,” one of the kitchen staff declares, and the woman does not finish her query. Hermann breathes a sigh of relief. He does not care, of course, about Newton’s murky past—a _natural_ child, and unwanted by his mother—but he will not see Newton embarrassed in front of him. Father looks relieved as well, but Hermann doubts for the same reason; his guests learning that his son’s intimate acquaintance is a bastard child would hardly do his reputation favors.

Newton is _talkative_ throughout dessert, but hardly what one would call charming. He’s loud, quick to engage in arguments with the other guests, insults at least three of them in a tirade against the aristocracy, eats more than his fair share. All while steadily rubbing at Hermann beneath the table. Hermann is twice as much in love with him before the party even moves to the ballroom.

“Newton and I will not be joining you,” Hermann explains, clasping his hands very delicately atop his cane to hide certain elements of his anatomy. Newton slouches to his left, his hands thrust carelessly in his pockets, his cravat askew again. “We have—important research to discuss. In the library.” He adds, after a moment, “Please don’t disturb us.”

“It’s very important,” Newton says, helpfully.

The other guests, and Hermann’s father, are more than eager to be gotten rid of them, so no one objects when Hermann bows farewell and ushers Newton off into the library a few moments later. “You’ve been atrocious,” Hermann says as he locks the door, and Newton’s hands are already pushing up his waistcoat, his lips pressing insistently at the back of Hermann’s neck. “Father will be _cross_ with me tomorrow.”

“Mm, he will be, won’t he?” Newton says. “You’re welcome.” Hermann laughs; Newton untucks Hermann’s blouse and slides his hands up Hermann’s chest, and tweaks a nipple. “Kiss me, Hermann.”

Hermann turns in Newton’s arms and consents enthusiastically, dropping his cane to cling to the back of Newton’s emerald waistcoat instead. “Newton,” he moans, as Newton bites at his jaw and maps across Hermann’s shoulder blades with his clever fingers. “Oh, my darling, I _missed_ you.”

“Hermann,” Newton says, “here, here—” He hoists Hermann into his arms—his lovely _strong_ arms—and carries him in three staggering steps to the stone hearth, just in front of where a warm fire crackles. “I want you warm,” Newton explains, laying him down carefully and straddling his hips. He’s golden and gorgeous, and when he pulls out the bit of cloth that ties his braid together, his long brown hair falls about his face in wavy curtains and makes Hermann’s heart thud wildly. He tangles his fingers in it as Newton unknots his cravat and kisses down his throat, his eyeglasses cool against Hermann’s skin.

“Newton,” he sighs, and “oh, touch me, yes,” and when Newton strips both of them down to their bare chests, shirts and waistcoats and cravats cast aside to a small pile, and presses up tight against him, he moans “ _Yes_ ,” again.

“How do you want me?” Newton breathes, hitching Hermann’s good leg up around his waist so he can, clumsily, rut their hips together. “This? Is this good?”

Heat blossoms across Hermann’s face. He’s almost too embarrassed to say what he really wants. “Did you,” he stammers, “er, did you bring…?”

“Did I bring what?” Newton says, and then he startles a bit. “Oh! Yes, I—” he does not disentangle himself from Hermann before reaching out and fumbling, blindly, through the pockets of his waistcoat, then produces a small vial of what Hermann knows to be sweet-scented oil (a creation of Newton’s own devising, after Hermann found it harder and harder to make excuses as to why he needed so much olive oil from the town shop). “I was almost sure I’d left it in my overcoat and that I’d have to horrify your entire party all over again.”

He begins to drag down both of their breeches, and Hermann laughs. “Imagine the scandal.”

“The Gottlieb prodigy being ravished on the floor of his _own library_ by a bastard thief,” Newton says, and their breeches join their shirts and coats. “ _Terrible_.” Hermann’s erection has not subsided since dinner, and now, with only a thing layer of undergarments and stockings separating it from his love as they rock together, it only grows harder. Newton kisses his throat again. “How do you want me?” he repeats, but with more intent—will Hermann being having Newton, or Newton Hermann?

Hermann’s face grows hot again. “You,” Hermann says. “I want you to—if that’s—?”

“ _God_ , yes, Hermann.”

Newton is quick and methodical in all he does, and just as Hermann marvels at him as he works (dissecting, sketching, examining), he marvels at him now: Newton pulls their stockings down, their undergarments, unscrews the cap of the oil, nudges Hermann’s thighs apart and presses a slick finger into him, then another, then another, readying him to take Newton. “More,” Hermann gasps, and “yes,” and “please,” and a flush spreads down Newton’s neck and colors the blue swirls of his elegant inking red.

When Newton deems him ready, he hitches Hermann’s leg up once more and slips into him with ease, tearing low sounds deep from within both of their chests. “Hermann,” Newton groans, forehead pressed to Hermann’s sternum as Hermann constricts around him, “oh, _God_.”

“Kiss me,” Hermann begs, “Newton, kiss—”

Newton steals a hot, searing kiss, gripping Hermann’s thigh as he begins to rock his hips slowly, and Hermann reaches around him and digs his nails into Newton’s back. “Hermann,” Newton says, hair swaying, eyeglasses fogged and slipping down his nose, “oh, Hermann, Hermann—”

“Faster,” Hermann begs, and Newton nods and obeys. Hermann feels the chill of the hardwood floor below his back, the glowing warmth of the hearth, and Newton, Newton kissing hot down his jaw, Newton on top of him, Newton deep within him, sending liquid fire through his nerves and making him _writhe_ and claw at Newton’s inked skin.

He clenches around Newton, kicks his heel against the small of Newton’s back when he needs _more, now_ , and when Newton spills into him with a little sob he grasps Hermann between their bodies, hand slippery, and strokes Hermann until Hermann’s arching off the floor and staining their stomachs white.

Afterwards, with their stockings bunched up at their ankles and semen sticking them tight together, Newton digs a handkerchief out of one of the pockets of Hermann’s discarded breeches and does his very best to tidy them up. It hardly makes a difference, but it’s enough that they can ease themselves into one of the large armchairs by the fireplace without fear of leaving behind suspicious stains. They spend their afterglow trading lazy kisses in each other’s arms and watching snow pile up on the windowsill. “You must stay the night,” Hermann says, carding his fingers through Newton’s soft hair. “I won’t have you out there in that storm.”

“What’s our excuse this time?” Newton says. Last time, it’d been because they’d ‘discussed’ research _far_ too late into the night and Hermann feared leaving Newton at the hands of the _dreadful_ highway robbers. The time before, he hadn’t wanted Newton to catch cold in the rain, and before that, when Hermann’s father left town for business, it was imperative the staff leave them be, as Newton and Hermann needed the _whole_ week for deep discussion.

“Let’s say you wounded your ankle when you fell on your way here,” Hermann muses, “and I fear you’d fall again, and be unable to get back up, and freeze to death in the snow.”

“Your father would love that,” Newton says with a laugh.

“Mm, but it’d reflect _terribly_ on the family reputation,” Hermann says, and kisses the tip of Newton’s nose. “Come, my dear, we’ve been long enough. They’ll send someone for us soon.”

They dress by the dim firelight and rejoin the party—which, Hermann learns, is drawing to a close early, on account of the guests’ fear they’ll be snowed in at the Gottlieb estate. Newton, however—his and Hermann’s story aided by the slight limp Newton affects masterfully—is granted permission to stay until the snowstorm passes, though Hermann’s father does not look happy about it. “I will tend to him myself,” Hermann explains to the staff, “You needn’t worry,” and he takes Newton to his bedchamber.

“Two weeks, I think,” Newton says, stretching out luxuriously on Hermann’s bed. He's undone his braid again, and his messily-tucked shirt rides up, revealing the pleasant curve of his stomach, and heat pools low in Hermann’s own once more at the sight. “That’s how long I’ll need until my _poor_ ankle recovers. Biologist’s opinion.”

“One can’t argue with that,” Hermann says, and sets his cane aside and joins Newton on the bed.

They watch the snow drift past the window Newton so frequently stumbles in through, listen to the fire crackle, and slowly fall asleep in each other’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> you know i actually wrote this in front of a (fake) fireplace
> 
> twitter: hermanngaylieb, tumblr: hermannsthumb!


End file.
